The Secret of Charlotte Bront by Frederika Macdonald

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Title: The Secret of Charlotte Brontë

Followed by Some Reminiscences of the Real Monsieur and Madame Heger

Author: Frederika Macdonald

Release Date: October 18, 2012 [eBook #41105]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRET OF CHARLOTTE BRONTë***

E-text prepared by Clare Graham & Laura McDonald

(http://www.girlebooks.com)

and Marc D'Hooghe

(http://www.freeliterature.org)

THE SECRET OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË

FOLLOWED BY

SOME REMINISCENCES OF THE REAL

MONSIEUR AND MADAME HEGER

BY

FREDERIKA MACDONALD, D.LITT.

AUTHORESS OF 'XAVIER AND I,' 'THE ILIAD OF THE EAST' 'A NEW CRITICISM OF J.-J. ROUSSEAU,'

'THE FLOWER AND THE SPIRIT,' 'THE HUMANE PHILOSOPHY OF ROUSSEAU,' ETC.

LONDON: T.C. & E.C. JACK

67 LONG ACRE, W.C.

AND EDINBURGH

1914

Portrait by Richmond

'And now I will rehearse the tale of Love, which I heard from Diotima of Mantineia, a woman wise in this,
and many other kinds of knowledge....

'... "What then is Love," I asked: "Is he mortal?" "He is neither mortal nor immortal, but in a mean between
the two," she replied. "He is a great Spirit, and, like all spirits, an intermediate between the divine and the
mortal." "And what," I said, "is his power?" "He interprets," she replied, "between gods and men;
conveying to the gods the prayers and sacrifices of men; and to men the commands and replies of the
gods." "And who," I said, "is his father? and who is his mother?" "His father," she replied, "was Plenty
(Poros), and his mother Poverty (Penia), and as his parentage is, so are his fortunes. He is always poor,
and has no shoes, nor a house to dwell in; on the bare earth exposed he lies under the open heaven, in the
streets, or at the doors of houses, taking his rest, and like his mother he is always in distress. Like his
father, too, he is bold, enterprising,—a philosopher at all times, terrible as an enchanter, sorcerer, sophist.
As he is neither mortal nor immortal, he is alive and flourishing one moment, and dead another moment;
and again alive, by reason of his father's nature."'

(Symposium. Plato's Dialogues. Translator, Jowett, vol. ii. pp. 54, 55.)

CONTENTS

PART I

CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S LETTERS TO M. HEGER
(These Letters supply the Key to the Secret of Charlotte Brontë)

CHAPTER I
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM OF CHARLOTTE
BRONTË, CREATED BY A FALSE CRITICAL METHOD

CHAPTER II
THE KEY TO THE PROBLEM

CHAPTER III
CHARLOTTE'S LAST YEAR AT BRUXELLES, 1842-43

CHAPTER IV
THE CONFESSION AT STE. GUDULE

CHAPTER V
THE LEAVE-TAKING—THE SCENE IN THE CLASS-ROOM
—'MY HEART WILL BREAK'

CHAPTER VI
THE LOVE-LETTERS OF A ROMANTIC

PART II

SOME REMINISCENCES OF THE REAL
MONSIEUR AND MADAME HEGER

CHAPTER I
THE HISTORICAL DIFFICULTY: TO DISENTANGLE
FACT FROM FICTION

CHAPTER II
MY FIRST INTRODUCTION TO CHARLOTTE
BRONTË'S PROFESSOR

CHAPTER III
MONSIEUR AND MADAME HEGER AS I SAW THEM:
AND BELGIAN SCHOOLGIRLS AS I KNEW THEM

CHAPTER IV
MY SECOND INTERVIEW WITH M. HEGER. THE
WASHING OF 'PEPPER.' THE LESSON IN

ARITHMETIC

CHAPTER V
THE STORY OF A CHAPEAU D'UNIFORME

CHAPTER VI
MADAME HEGER'S SENTIMENT OF THE JUSTICE
OF RESIGNATION TO INJUSTICE

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CHARLOTTE BRONTË .... Frontispiece
THE FRONT OF THE SCHOOL IN THE RUE D'ISABELLE
M. HEGER AT SIXTY
DRAWING BY CHARLOTTE BRONTË OF ASHBURNHAM CHURCH
(Copyright of Author)
MADAME HEGER AT SIXTY
(Copyright of Author)
THE ALLÉE DÉFENDUE
(Copyright of Author)
THE GALERIE AND GARDEN IN WINTER
(Copyright of Author)

THE SECRET OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË

PART I

CHAPTER I

THE 'PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM' OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË,

CREATED BY A FALSE CRITICAL METHOD

We live in an epoch when impressionist methods of criticism, admissible, and often illuminative, in the domains of art
and of imaginative literature, have invaded the once jealously guarded paths of historical criticism, to the detriment of
correct standards of judgment. Leading critics, whose literary accomplishments, powers of persuasive argument, and
unquestionable good faith, lend great influence to their decisions, show no sort of hesitation in undertaking to interpret
the characters and careers of famous men and women, independently of any examination of evidence, by purely
psychological methods. I am not denying that, as literary exercises, some of these impressionist portraits of men and
women of genius, seen through the temperament of writers who are, sometimes, endowed with genius themselves, are
very interesting. But what has to be remembered (and what is constantly forgotten) is, that if these psychological
interpretations of people who once really existed are to be accorded any authority as historical judgments, they must
have been preceded by an attentive enquiry, enabling the future interpreter, before he begins to employ psychology, to
feel perfectly certain that he has clearly in view the particular Soul he is undertaking to penetrate, with its own special
qualities, and placed amongst, and acted upon by, the real circumstances of its earthly career. Where the preliminary
precaution of this enquiry, into the true facts that have to be penetrated, and explained, has been neglected, no
psychological subtlety, no pathological science, no sympathetic insight, can protect the most accomplished literary
impressionist from forming, and fostering, false opinions about the historical personages he is judging from a standpoint
of assumptions that do not allow him to exercise the true function of criticism, defined by Matthew Arnold as: 'an
impartial endeavour to see the thing as in itself it really is.'

In the case of Charlotte Brontë, her first, and, still, classical biographer, Mrs. Gaskell, carried through, now fifty-seven
years ago, with great literary skill, and also with historical exactitude, the study of her parentage and youth; of her
experiences in England as a governess; of her family trials and losses; of the sudden development of her talent, or rather,
of her genius as a writer, that, at one bound, after the publication of her first novel, made her famous throughout
England; and soon famous throughout Europe: and that proved her (since Charlotte has been 'dead'—as people use the
phrase—more than half a century, and since her books are still living spirits, we may be allowed to affirm this) one of
the immortals.

But now whilst all these epochs in Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë were studied by exact historical methods,
there was one epoch in her heroine's career that this, elsewhere, conscientious biographer neglected to study at all: in
the sense, of subjecting facts and events and personages, belonging to its history, to careful examination. Here, on the
contrary, we find that Mrs. Gaskell left exact methods of enquiry behind her; and adopted arbitrary psychological
methods, of arguments, and assumptions, where, not only no effort was made to consult the testimony of facts, but
where this testimony was ignored, or contradicted, when it stood in the way, of preconceived theories. And this period,

thus inadequately, or, rather, thus mischievously, dealt with, happened to be precisely the one where the key must be
found to the right interpretations of Charlotte's personality; and of the emotions and experiences she had undergone and
that called her genius forth to life: and stamped it with the seal and quality that made her, amongst our great English
Novelists, the only representative prose-writer in our literature of the European literary movement that French critics
praise, and attack, under the name of le Romantisme.

The period in Charlotte's life that I am speaking of is, of course, the interval of two years (from Feb. 1842 to Jan.
1844) that she spent at Bruxelles, in the school in the Rue d'Isabelle, whose Director and Directress, Monsieur and
Madame Heger, are supposed to have been painted in the characters of 'Paul Emanuel' and of 'Madame Beck,' in the
famous novel of Villette.

How far that supposition is justified, and to what extent Villette is an autobiographical reminiscence, thinly disguised as
a novel, can be now, but has never been up to this date, satisfactorily decided, by an attentive historical enquiry. What
is established securely to-day, and cannot be removed from the foundation of documentary evidence that serves as the
basis upon which all future theories must rest, is, that it is in this period that Charlotte Brontë—not as an enthusiastic and
half-formed school-girl, as some reckless modern impressionist critics, careless of the evidence of facts, would have us
believe, but as a woman, profoundly sincere, impassioned, exalted, unstained, and unstainable, who, between twenty-
six and twenty-eight years of age, had long left girlish extravagance behind her—underwent experiences and emotions,
that were not transient feelings, nor sensational excitements. But they were transforming and formative spiritual
influences—causing, no doubt, bitter anguish, and intolerable regrets, that 'broke her heart,' in the sense that they
destroyed personal hope or belief in happiness, and even the personal capacity for happiness: yet that from this grave of
buried hope, called her genius forth to life; and stamped and sealed it, with its special quality and gift:—the gift that
made her a 'Romantic.' So that at this hour one has not to deplore any longer, for Charlotte's sake, this tragical
sentiment, of predestined, hopeless, and unrequited love, that broke her heart, but that gave her immortality. For, whilst
the broken heart is healed now, or, at any rate, has slept in peace for more than half a century, the genius, born from its
sorrow, is still a living spirit; and will probably continue to live on, from age to age, whilst the English tongue endures.

At the present hour all this can be positively affirmed. But even before the final settlement, for every critic who respects
historical evidence, of the now incontrovertible fact, Mrs. Gaskell's method of dealing with this momentous period could
not satisfy an attentive student who compared her account with Charlotte's correspondence: and also with eloquent
impassioned passages in Villette and the Professor, where the authoress is plainly painting emotions and impressions
she has herself undergone. And the effect that was left upon thoughtful readers of the Life of Charlotte Brontë' was
that the biographer was, not negligently, but deliberately, altering the true significance, by underrating the importance,
of Charlotte's experiences in Bruxelles, and of her relationships with Monsieur and Madame Heger.

This biographer's theory was (and the doctrine has been vehemently defended by a certain clique of devotees of
Charlotte Brontë down to the present day) that Charlotte obtained, certainly, great intellectual stimulus, as well as
literary culture, from the lessons of M. Heger, as an accomplished Professor; but that, outside of these influences, her
relationships with M. Heger were of an entirely ordinary and tranquil character, and that she carried back with her to
Haworth, after her two years' residence in Bruxelles, no other sentiments than those of the grateful regard and esteem a
good pupil necessarily retains for a Professor whose lessons she has turned to excellent account.

How far Mrs. Gaskell did believe, or was able to make herself believe, what she professed, it is difficult to determine
now. My own opinion is she did not believe it; but that she esteemed it a duty to respect the secret that had not been
confided to her: and to pass by in silence, and with averted eyes, the place where, forsaken by hope, Charlotte had
fought out bravely and all alone this battle, with a hopeless passion (that, after all, when it comes across any woman's
path, she must fight out alone, because nowhere, outside of her own soul, is there any help), and then, having won her
battle, had gone on, leaving her broken heart buried in that silent, secret place, to face her altered destiny. And to write
stories as a method of salvation from despair. But to return, now and again, to visit that silent, secret grave: and to
gather the magical flowers that grew there, and breathe their bitter, sweet perfume. And to take large handfuls of these
flowers home with her, and, in the air saturated with the bitter-sweet perfume of these magical flowers, to write her
stories. So that the stories themselves come to us, not like other stories, but steeped in this strange perfume thrilled
through with the magical life belonging to flowers of remembrance, gathered from the grave of a tragical romance. And
this explains why the stories are themselves romantic: and why, as Harriet Martineau complained, Villette, especially,
has this quality, which, to the authoress of Illustrations in Political Economy, appeared a defect, that 'all events and
personages are regarded through the medium of one passion only—the passion of unrequited love.'

To return to Mrs. Gaskell and her criticism of Charlotte Brontë. The question of whether she, like Harriet Martineau,
committed a critical blunder, as a result of studying Charlotte's character and genius by wrong methods, or whether out
of loyalty she endeavoured to cover in her friend's life the secret romance that Charlotte herself never revealed, does
not need to trouble us much, because the answer does not greatly matter. However laudatory Mrs. Gaskell's motive
may have been, the fact remains, that, as a result of her endeavour rather to turn attention away from, than to examine,
the true circumstances of Charlotte's relationships with Monsieur and Madame Heger, an inadequate, or else a false,
criticism was inaugurated by her influence of the most popular in Europe of our distinguished women novelists, and who,
outside of England, is judged by right standards as a 'Romantic,' but who, in her own country, has been criticised from
1857 down to 1913, in the light of one of two contradictory impressions—both of which we now know were historical
mistakes.

The first of these impressions is that Charlotte Brontë has painted, not only her own emotions, but her own actual
experiences, in Villette; and that Lucy Snowe, Paul Emanuel, and Madame Beck, are pseudonyms, under which we
ought to recognise Charlotte herself, and the Director and Directress of the Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle.

The second, and almost equally mischievous impression is that no romantic nor tragical sentiment whatever
characterises the relationships between Charlotte Brontë and her Bruxelles Professor in literature; and that she derived
her inspirations as a writer solely from the drab dreariness and the desolation of disease and death, of her life in the
shadow of Haworth churchyard. It is impossible from the standpoint of either of these impressions to form right opinions
about Charlotte Brontë, either as a distinguished personality, or as a writer of genius, whose place in English literature is
that amongst our prose writers she is the representative 'Romantic' who counts with George Sand; but differs from her,
as an English and not a French exponent of the sentiment of romantic love.

Judged both as a distinguished personality and as a writer of genius from the standpoint of the impression that Villette is
an autobiographical story, Charlotte Brontë suffers injustice, both as a woman of fine character, and as an imaginative
painter of emotions rather than an observer of events, or a critic of manners. Accepted as a realistic picture of her own
adventures in Brussels, the book does not testify to her accuracy or skill in portraiture, from the purely literary point of
view. And from the moral and personal standpoint, she remains convicted (if she be held to be telling her own story) of
the baseness of a half-confession;—and of a dishonourable and a successful, not a romantic and tragical, love for a
married man. And of the treacherous wrong done a sister-woman, who threw open her home to her, when she was a
friendless alien in a foreign city. And, if this were so, this traitress would have further aggravated the dishonest betrayal
of her protectress, by holding up the woman she had wronged to the world's detestation, either as the contemptible and
scheming Mlle. Zoraïde Reuter, of the Professor:—or the less contemptible but more hateful Madame Beck, in
Villette.

If, then, Charlotte did mean, or even suppose, that others could be induced to believe that she meant, to paint her own
relationships to Monsieur and Madame Heger in the story, she would stand convicted, not only as a woman of bad
character, but as one who had a wicked and vindictive heart.

Nor yet does the second impression, patronised by devotees of Charlotte Brontë (who seem to imagine that the
revelation of an entirely innocent and indeed beautiful, though tragical, romantic attachment in the life of this romantic
writer, is the disclosure of a sin), help us to find any solution of the 'problem' as psychological critics present it to us, of
the 'dissonance' between her personality and dull existence, and her literary distinction, as our chief English Romantic,
and the authoress of those amazing masterpieces Jane Eyre and Villette. What a contrast, in effect, between the
characteristics of these masterpieces and the characteristics of her circumstances at Haworth and of the circle of her
familiar acquaintances! The characteristics of Charlotte's books are—emotional force, the exaltation of passion over all
the commonplace proprieties, the low-toned feelings, the semi-educated pedantries that are the characteristics of the
people who surround Charlotte; who are her correspondents and her friends; and whose mediocrity weighs on the poor
original woman's spirit (and even on her literary style) like lead:—so that the letters she writes to them are, really, nearly
as dull as the letters they write to her; and one finds it hard to believe that some of the letters, to Ellen Nussey, for
instance, come from the same pen that wrote Villette: or even that wrote from Bruxelles some of her letters to Emily.

And again, if we leave out of account the tragical romantic sentiment for M. Heger, how are we to solve the problem as
these psychologists present it to us, and that states itself in this conviction: that the creator of 'Rochester' and 'Paul
Emanuel' found her own romance, only at forty years of age, in her marriage with the Rev. A.B. Nicholls, an event she
announces thus:—'I trust the demands of both feeling and duty will be in some measure reconciled by the step in
contemplation'; adding on to this the following description of the future bridegroom: 'Mr Nicholls is a kind,
considerate fellow: with all his masculine faults, he enters into my wishes about having the thing done quietly'?

From the standpoint of the impression that the romance in Charlotte's life, was the marriage she speaks of as 'the
thing,' that she wishes 'may be done quietly,'—and that the highest pitch of personal emotion she attained to, is
expressed by her in the temperate confidence that by 'the step in contemplation'—'the demands of both feeling and
duty may in some measure be reconciled,' (—only in some measure? Poor Charlotte!—But she died within a year)
—from this standpoint, I say, one really cannot solve the problem of the 'dissonance' between Charlotte's personality
and her books.

But there is one conclusion we are bound to reach. The influences of Haworth, no doubt—the drab dreariness of
everything; and then the desolation after Bramwell's death, and Emily's death, and Anne's death—and the father
threatened with blindness—and also the mediocrity of all those dull, dull people, who represented her familiar friends
and correspondents, so satisfied with themselves, all of them; so dissatisfied with life, and who saw it through the
medium not of a romantic tragical sentiment, not of one great passion, but through the medium of small grievances of
superior nursery governesses: the sort of people who dislike children, and want overdriven mothers to be always
occupied with their governesses' sentiments, instead of with the baby who is cutting its teeth. No doubt the influences of
Haworth and of Charlotte Brontë's 'Circle' there, before she became famous, did help to plant in her the immense
depression and fatigue of a spirit that had known the stress of great emotions, and could bear no more,—expressed in
the letter announcing her decision to marry one of the curates she had laughed at in Shirley—who with all his
masculine faults,' she says, 'is a kind, considerate fellow,' who doesn't expect her to pretend she thinks this marriage
('the thing')—a Festival. Well, but the conclusion we must form is this, that if it be at Haworth, and after 1846, that we
must find the causes of the depression that brought about Charlotte's marriage with Mr. Nicholl, it is not here that we

must seek the 'Secret of Charlotte Brontë';—the romance that broke her heart, true—but made her an immortal,
whose claim to live for ever is based upon no moderate well-balanced sentiment, where 'the demands of both feeling
and duty will be in some measure reconciled'—but upon passionate emotions, compelling expression, and forming a
new language almost; as M. Jules Lemaître has said 'introducing new ways of feeling, and as it were a new vibration into
literature.'

And in the place where the romance in Charlotte's life is found must we seek, also, the source of this power of emotion:
creating powers of expression to which much more accomplished literary artists than Charlotte (Jane Austen and Mrs.
Gaskell, for instance) never reached; and to an intimate knowledge of moods and ecstasies and raptures, that rule and
torture and exalt human souls, that much more subtle and scientific psychologists than herself (George Eliot, for instance,
and Mrs. Humphry Ward) never discovered.

The supreme gift of the authoress of Villette and Jane Eyre, as a painter of emotions, an interpreter of intimate moods,
a witness in the cause of ideal sentiments, an incessant rebel against vulgarity and common worldliness, and the stupid
tyranny of custom, an upholder of the sovereignty of romance, cannot be weighed against, nor judged by, the same
standards as the accomplished literary gift of such finished artists as the authors of Pride and Prejudice and Cranford,
such subtle students of character as the authors of Middlemarch and Robert Elsmere, such vigorous fighters for
intellectual and moral ends as are represented by the author of the Illustrations upon Political Economy, and the
Atkinson Letters. And it is because, as a result of judging her genius and her personality from the standpoint of false
impressions, Charlotte Brontë has not been recognised in England as a painter of personal emotions, a Romantic in
short, but has been judged as the advocate of a general doctrine—(one very agreeable to the convictions of the average
man, but especially exasperating to the aspirations and principles of the superior woman)—I mean, the doctrine that to
obtain the love of a man whom she feels to be, and rejoices to recognise as, her 'Master,'—is the supreme desire
and dream of every truly feminine heart; it is because, I say, of this mistake, that Charlotte has become the idol of a
class of critics least qualified perhaps to appreciate the merits of a romantic rebel against conventional domesticity;
whilst amongst more naturally sympathetic judges, the peculiar perfume and power of these novels, steeped in and
saturated with the passionate essence of a personal romance, has not been recognised either for what it really is,—the
'magic' of Charlotte Brontë; the special quality in her work that gives it originality and distinction; but this very quality
—'the personal note' that makes her our only English Romantic Novelist, has been signalised by many sincere admirers
of her books as a defect!

I have already mentioned the judgment passed upon Villette by an admirable woman of letters, Charlotte Brontë's
personal friend, and a critic whose good faith, and honest desire to serve the interests of this sister-authoress with whom
she found fault it is quite impossible to doubt.

When Villette appeared, Charlotte Brontë had been for some little time on very friendly terms with Harriet Martineau:
and she did not fear to incur the risk—always a perilous one to friendship—of asking Harriet to tell her, quite frankly,
what she thought of her book. Harriet responded with perfect frankness to the invitation; and the almost inevitable result
followed. The event wrecked their friendship. And no one was to blame: Harriet Martineau, without disguise, but
without malice, said what she thought was true. But neither was Charlotte in the wrong, for she felt herself unjustly
judged; and her feeling was right, because Harriet used false standards.

'As for the matter which you so desire to know,' wrote the frank Harriet; 'I have but one thing to say: but it is not a small
one. I do not like the love—either the kind or the degree of it—and its prevalence in the book, and effect on the action
of it, help to explain the passages in the reviews which you consulted me about, and seem to afford some foundation for
the criticism they afford.'

Charlotte was deeply offended: 'I protest against this passage,' she wrote; 'I know what love is as I understand it, and if
man or woman should be ashamed of feeling such love, then there is nothing right, noble, faithful, truthful, unselfish in this
earth, as I comprehend rectitude, nobleness, fidelity, truth and disinterestedness.'

Here spoke the Romantic. But Harriet Martineau was not a Romantic but an Intellectual, and she judged Charlotte's
books and her genius through her own temperament, and by intellectual standards. She followed up the private rebuke
to her friend for making too much of love, in a review of Villette, contributed to the Daily News.

'All the female characters,' she wrote, 'in all their thoughts and lives, are full of one thing, or are regarded in the light of
that one thought, love! It begins with the child of six years old, of the opening (a charming picture), and closes with it at
the last page. And so dominant is this idea, so incessant is the writer's tendency to describe the need of being loved,
that the heroine, who tells her own story, leaves the reader at last under the uncomfortable impression of her having
either entertained a double love, or allowed one to supersede another, without notification of the transition. It is not thus
in real life. There are substantial, heartfelt interests for women of all ages, and, under ordinary circumstances, quite apart
from love; there is an absence of introspection, an unconsciousness, a repose, in women's lives, unless under peculiarly
unfortunate circumstances, of which we find no admission in this book; and to the absence of it may be attributed some
of the criticism which the book will meet with from readers who are no prudes, but whose reason and taste will regret
the assumption that events and characters are to be regarded through the medium of one passion only.'

The critical blunder in this judgment is that here the authoress of the Illustrations in Political Economy and of the
Atkinson Letters sees the authoress of Villette through her own temperament, as an intellectual like herself:—a humane
sociologist, and a philosophical freethinker, whose literary purpose is to use her talent as a writer in the service of

her ideas and principles. Judging Villette and its authoress from this point of view and by these standards, Harriet
Martineau decides that because 'all events and characters in Villette are regarded through the medium of one passion,
love,' therefore the literary motive and purpose of the authoress must have been to deny—or at any rate to ignore—
that 'there are substantial heartfelt interests for women of all ages, and in ordinary circumstances, quite apart
from love.'

The mistake lay in assuming that Charlotte Brontë was an intellectual, instead of an imaginative genius; and that her
literary purpose was to affirm, or deny, or ignore deliberately, any principle; or in any way to make her genius the
servant of her intellect; whereas her intelligence was so coloured by her imagination, so subservient to her genius, that if
one were to measure her by intellectual standards—with Harriet Martineau, for instance—she would remain as vastly
Harriet's inferior in enthusiasm of humanity, in practical benevolence and warm interest in social reform, and in
emancipations from prejudice and insularity and bigotry, as she was Harriet's superior in power of passionate feeling, in
wealth of imagination, and in superb gift of expression. But any such comparison would be out of place. Let us admit
that Charlotte's thoughts and aspirations, as we find them scattered through her writings, express the ordinary vigorous
prejudices of an English gentlewoman of her period, brought up under the influences of a father who was a good sort of
Tory clergyman; that her attitude of condescension toward, rather than of sympathy with, the 'common people,'
regarded as the 'lower orders,' who should be kindly treated of course, but kept in their place, and taught to 'order
themselves lowly and reverently to their betters,' indicates a defective humanitarianism; that her almost rabid patriotism
—her conviction that not to be English is a misfortune, and a stamp of inferiority that weighs heavily as an impediment to
nobility and virtue, upon every member of every other foreign race, is distinctly narrow; and that her staunch and
straitened protestantism, leaves her as far away as the 'idolatrous priests' she denounced, from any claim to enlightened
tolerance.

Yet this lack of any particular height or breadth or distinction in Charlotte Brontë's social, political, critical, or even
religious views, does not in any way detract from the height, depth and distinction of her powers of noble emotion and
splendid expression; nor from the rare gift of translating words into feelings that quicken her readers' sensibility to a finer
perception of the ideal beauty that lies at the heart of common things.

Here is the gift by which we have to judge, or, to speak more becomingly, for which we have to praise and thank, our
only English 'Romantic' novelist, who stands in rank with George Sand, and who has been studied in comparison with
her by Swinburne. And we have to praise, and thank our Charlotte all the more, because she has a national as well as a
personal note: and brings to this European literary movement the characteristic qualities of imagination and sentiment
that belong to our English literary temperament, and that do us honour, as a romantic people who are romantic in our
own, and nobody else's way.

But now if we want to appreciate the 'magic' of Charlotte Brontë as a Romantic we must not look for the sources of her
inspiration at Haworth; nor in the circle of dull people, to whom she wrote, brilliant writer as she was, dull letters,
because their mediocrity weighed upon her spirit like lead.

Twenty years ago, now, I attempted (but was not especially successful in the task) to establish upon the personal
knowledge that my own residence as a pupil in the historical Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle, at Bruxelles gave me of
the facts of Charlotte Brontë's relationships to Monsieur and Madame Heger, right impressions about the experiences
and emotions she underwent between 1842 and 1846, and that supply the key and clue to the right interpretation of her
genius. Every opinion I then ventured to state, not upon the authority of any special power of divination or of
psychological insight of my own, but solely upon the authority of this personal knowledge of Monsieur and Madame
Heger in my early girlhood, and also of the information I owed to the friendship and kind assistance given me, in my
endeavour to rectify false judgments, by the Heger family, has quite recently, not only been confirmed, but established
upon entirely incontrovertible evidence, by the generous gift made to English readers throughout the world of the key
needed to unlock once and for ever the tragical but romantic 'Secret' of Charlotte Brontë.

CHAPTER II

THE KEY TO THE PROBLEM

The common saying, that 'people must be just before they are generous,' becomes at once less common and more
correct when it is formulated differently. 'One needs to be very generous before one can be really just' is Jean-
Jacques Rousseau's way of stating the proposition. And one calls this sentence to remembrance when recognising how
much generosity is revealed in the act of justice recently performed by Dr. Paul Heger in his gift to the British Museum
(that is to say to English readers throughout the world) of the four tragical, but incomparably beautiful, Letters written by
Charlotte Brontë to his father, the late Professor Constantin Heger, within two years of her return to England.

No doubt this gift was an act of justice. Without the conclusive evidence these Letters afford, there would have been no
means of rectifying the arbitrary, false, and inadequate criticism of the personality, and thus, indirectly, of the writings, of
a great novelist misjudged especially in her own country.

But whilst, for these reasons, the publication of these Letters was a duty to English literature, the son of the late Director
and Directress of the Bruxelles Pensionnat—unwarrantably supposed to have their literal counterparts in the interesting
Professor Paul Emanuel, and in the abominable Madame Beck—might well, in view of the unintelligent and ungenerous
criticism of his parents by English readers, have refused to recognise any obligation on his side to concern himself with
the rectification of the dull laudatory, or the malicious condemnatory, judgments passed, from a false standpoint, on the
authoress of Villette.

We find Dr. Paul Heger able to rise entirely above all personal rancour, and to recognise that Charlotte Brontë herself is
not to be made responsible because a good many of her critics have blundered. Indeed, the conduct of the whole
Heger family since the publication of Villette, and the death of Charlotte Brontë, has been distinguished by this fine
spirit of disinterestedness; and by a dignified indifference to undeserved reproaches. The answer to all charges, of
unkindness to Charlotte on Madame Heger's part, or of injudicious kindness first, followed by heartless indifference, on
M. Heger's side, was in their hands; and they had only to publish the present Letters to establish the facts as they really
were. But this could not have been done in the time when Villette appeared, nor even immediately after Charlotte's
death, without wounding others. Villette appeared in 1853. In 1854 Charlotte, then in her fortieth year, married the
Rev. A.B. Nicholls; and she died less than a year after this marriage. Mr. Nicholls survived her more than forty years.
No doubt he would have been wounded in his sensibilities by the disclosure of his late wife's entirely honourable, but
very romantic and passionate earlier attachment to somebody else. Intimate personal friends of Charlotte, also, would
have been afflicted, not by her revelations, but by the commentaries upon them that a certain type of critic would have
infallibly indulged in. Whilst these conditions lasted, the Heger family scrupulously refrained from publishing these
documents. Twenty years ago, when I was collecting the materials for my article published in the Woman at Home, and
when, in the light of my own recollection of M. and Madame Heger, as their former pupil, I endeavoured to rectify,
what I knew to be, false impressions about their relationships with Charlotte Brontë, I was told by my honoured and
dearly loved friend, Mademoiselle Louise Heger, about the existence of these Letters; but they were not shown me.
And I was further assured that, whilst they would be carefully preserved, they would not be published, until every one
had disappeared who could in any way be offended by their disclosure. After the lapse of more than half a century since
Charlotte's death, these conditions have now been reached. And in his admirable Letter to the Principal Librarian of the
British Museum, Dr. Paul Heger explains his reasons for making this present to the English people of documents entirely
honourable to the character of one of our great writers, and that explain the emotions and experiences that formed her
genius:

'Sir,—In the name of my sisters and myself' (thus runs the opening sentence of the Letter reprinted in the Times), 'as the
representatives of the late M. Constantin Heger, I beg leave to offer to the British Museum, as the official custodian on
behalf of the British People, the Letters of Charlotte Brontë, which the great Novelist addressed to our Father. These
four important Letters, which have been religiously preserved, may be accepted as revealing the soul of the gifted author
whose genius is the pride of England. We have hesitated long as to whether these documents, so private, so intimate,
should be scanned by the public eye. We have been deterred from offering them sooner, by the thought that, perhaps,
the publicity involved in the gift might be considered incompatible with the sensitive nature of the artist herself. But we
offer them the more readily, as they lay open the true significance of what has hitherto been spoken of as the "Secret of
Charlotte Brontë," and show how groundless is the suspicion which has resulted from the natural speculations of critics
and biographers; to the disadvantage of both parties to the one-sided correspondence. We then, admirers of her genius
and personality, venture to propose that we may have the honour of placing these Letters in your hands; making only
the condition that they may be preserved for the use of the nation.'

'Doubtless,' continues Dr. Paul Heger, when dealing with the actual relations between Charlotte and the Director and
Directress of the school in the Rue d'Isabelle, 'Doubtless, my parents played an important part in the life of Charlotte
Brontë: but she did not enter into their lives as one would imagine from what passes current to-day. That is evident
enough from the very circumstances of life, so different for her, and for them. There is nothing in these Letters that is not
entirely honourable to their author, as to him to whom they are addressed. It is better to lay bare the very innocent
mystery, than to let it be supposed that there is anything to hide. I hope that the publication of these Letters will bring to
an end a legend which has never had any real existence in fact. I hope so: but legends are more tenacious of life than
sober reality.'

The last observation shows that Dr. Paul Heger, an experienced littérateur, foresaw what has actually happened, and
that the defenders of the two 'legends' of Charlotte Brontë, patronised by writers who derive the authority for their
opinions about her, not from the study of the facts of her life and character, but from their own impressions and
convictions, are not going to admit that the legends are overthrown, simply because it has been proved that they are
founded upon mistakes. At the same time, no statement can be more true than that 'facts are stubborn things,' and that,
when these 'stubborn things' are found arrayed in stern and uncompromising opposition to the impressions and
convictions of the most accomplished psychological theorists—well, it is the psychological theorists who must give way.

And this is the situation that has to be faced to-day by critics of Charlotte Brontë, who have either formed their opinions
about her in the light of their impression that Villette represents an autobiographical study, or else who have founded
their judgments of her personality and genius as a writer upon their conviction that it is a 'silly and offensive
imputation' to suppose that her sentiment for M. Heger was a warmer feeling than the esteem and gratitude a clever
pupil owes an accomplished professor.

In connection with the tenacity of life of this last theory (after the publication of the evidence which proves it is a
mistake), we have to consider with serious attention the account rendered in the Times of the 30th July 1913, of an
interview with Mr. Clement Shorter, known to be the most distinguished supporter, in the past, of the doctrine that
Charlotte's sentiment for Professor Heger was 'literary enthusiasm,' and nothing more. And this serious attention is
needed, because, in Mr. Clement Shorter's case, it is not allowable to dismiss lightly the judgment of a critic who (after
Mrs. Gaskell) has done more than any one else to throw light upon the family history of the Brontës, and also upon and
around those three interesting and touching personalities—Emily, Anne, and, the greatest of them all, Charlotte, amongst
the familiar scenes and personages of their environment at Haworth, both before and after they had conquered their
unique place in English literature. One cannot for a moment suppose that Mr. Clement Shorter wilfully refuses to see
things as they really are, simply because it pleases him to see them differently? No! One realises perfectly that, as with
Mrs. Gaskell fifty-seven years ago, so with this modern conscientious and generous critic to-day there exists an entirely
noble, and, from a given point of view, justifiable reason, for refusing to handle or examine a matter with which (so it
is alleged) historical and literary criticism has no concern—a purely personal, and intimate secret sorrow, in the life of an
admirable woman of genius; the sanctuary of whose inner feelings it is by no means necessary to explore: and still less
necessary to throw open to the vulgar curiosity and malevolent insinuations of a generation of critics, infected with hero-
phobia, and the unwholesome delight of discovering 'a good deal to reprobate and even more to laugh at ,' in the
sensibility of men and women of genius, who have honoured the human race, and enriched the world, because they
have possessed through power of feeling, power also of doing fine work, that the critics who find much in them 'to
reprobate and more to laugh at' have not the power even to appreciate. Now, if the point of view of Mrs. Gaskell and
Mr. Clement Shorter were a correct one, with all my heart and soul I, for my part, should approve of their action in
slamming the door in the face of invading facts that threatened to leave the way open for scandal-hunters and hero-
phobists to enter with them, and to deal with the honoured reputation of Charlotte Brontë in the same way that—more
to the discredit of English letters than to that of two French writers of genius—recent critics have dealt with the love-
letters of Madame de Staël and George Sand.

This point of view, however, is a mistaken one in the present case, because, to commence with, Charlotte Brontë's
romantic love for M. Heger affords no game to the scandal-hunter; but, on the contrary, it is serviceable to the just
appreciation of her character, as well as of her genius, that her true sentiment for her Professor—that explains her
attitude of mind when writing 'Villette'—should be rightly understood. Then also, whilst Madame de Staël's
infatuation for Benjamin Constant neither adds to nor diminishes her claims, as the authoress of Corinne and de
l'Allemagne, to the rank of a fine writer and a great critic, and while George Sand's tormenting and tormented love for
the ill-fated, irresistible, unstable 'child of his century,' de Musset, is a poignant revelation of the passing weakness
(through immense tenderness) of a splendidly strong and independent spirit, that one is almost ashamed to be made the
spectator of, Charlotte Brontë's valorous martyrdom, undergone secretly and silently, and 'rewarded openly,' fills one
with an extraordinary sentiment of respect for her: and justifies Mr. Clement Shorter's own fine and generous utterances
upon the impression that the Letters that betray the anguish she endured, and overcame, alone, produces upon him.

'Charlotte Brontë,' said Mr. Clement Shorter, by the report of an interviewer who recorded his opinions in the Times,
30th July, immediately after the publication of these Letters, 'is one of the noblest figures in life as well as in
literature; and these Letters place her on a higher pedestal than ever.'

Let me quote from the same report in the Times the further statement of his opinions given by this well-known critic, as
to the sentiments revealed in these Letters:

'Mr. Shorter,' affirmed the interviewer, 'welcomed the publication of the letters in the Times "as giving the
last and final word on an old and needless controversy." "Personally," he said, "I have always held the
view that those letters were actuated only by the immense enthusiasm of a woman desiring comradeship
and sympathy with a man of the character of Professor Heger. There was no sort of great sorrow on her
part because Professor Heger was a married man, and it is plain in her letters that she merely desired
comradeship with a great man. When Charlotte Brontë made her name famous with her best-known
novel, she experienced much the same adulation from admirers of both sexes as she had already poured
upon her teacher. She found that literary comradeship she desired in half a dozen male correspondents to
whom she addressed letters in every way as interesting as those written by her to Professor Heger. There
is nothing in those letters of hers, published now for the first time, that any enthusiastic woman might not
write to a man double her age, who was a married man with a family, and who had been her teacher.
When one considers that half a dozen writers have, in the past, declared that Charlotte Brontë was in love
with Professor Heger, it is a surprising thing that Dr. Heger did not years ago publish the letters. They are
a complete vindication both of her and of his father, and, as such, I welcome them, as I am sure must all
lovers of the Brontës."'

In his first contention Mr. Clement Shorter is undeniably right: it is quite true that 'the publication of these Letters
places Charlotte Brontë on a higher pedestal than ever.' But why is this true? Because these are love-letters of a
very rare and wonderful character; because the passionate tragical emotion that throbs through them is a love that,
recognised as hopeless, as unrequited, makes only one claim; that, precisely because it makes no other, it has a right
to be accepted and to live. Now this sort of love is a very rare and wonderful emotion, that only a noble being can
feel; and that although it is hopeless, tragical, is nevertheless a splendid fact, that renders it absurd to deny that
sublime unselfishness is a capacity of human nature. And, again, these letters place Charlotte Brontë 'on a higher

pedestal than ever,' because in them her vocation and gift of expressing her own emotions in a way that makes them
'vibrate' in us like living feelings is here carried to its height. So that these personal letters, more even than the pictured
emotions of Lucy Snowe, stand out as a record of romantic love that (in so far as I know) has never before been
rivalled. It is true we have the romantic love-letters of Abelard and Héloïse, and the letters in the New Héloïse of Saint-
Preux to Julie, and of Julie to Saint-Preux, after their separation, as beautiful examples of love surviving hope of
happiness; and Sainte-Beuve has quoted, as examples of the tragical disinterested passion of a love that claims no
return, but only the right to exist, the letters of some eighteenth-century women: Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse, Madame
de la Popelinière, and Mademoiselle d'Aissé. But in none of these historic love-letters (so, at least, it seems to me) does
one feel, with the same truth and strength as in these recently published letters of Charlotte Brontë to M. Heger, the
'vibration' of this tragical, hopeless, romantic love, that asks for nothing but acceptance, that does not 'seek its own'—
the love that only asks to give, compared with which all other sorts of love, that do seek their own and claim return, are
as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.

But now, if we were to accept the view of these letters, that they do not express love at all, but merely the writer's
'desire of comradeship with a great man': and that 'after she had become famous "she found that literary
comradeship she desired, in half a dozen male correspondents, to whom she addressed letters in every way as
interesting as those written by her to M. Heger"'; and that 'there is nothing in these letters that any enthusiastic
woman might not write to a man double her age, who was a married man with a family, and who had been her
teacher'—if we could accept all these views, could we then hold the opinion that 'the publication of these letters places
Charlotte on a higher pedestal than ever'?

It seems to me, on the contrary, that then we should find ourselves compelled to admit that Charlotte Brontë had fallen
very much in our esteem as a result of the publication of these Letters. For whilst romantic love is a noble sentiment that
does honour to the heart that feels it, an 'immense enthusiasm for literary comradeship with great men' is not
necessarily, nor generally even, a commendable sentiment. It is very often merely a rather vulgar and selfish persistency
in claiming the time and attention of busy people who don't want the comradeship; and I suppose there are very few
people in the least degree famous who have not been rightly harassed by the 'e...